Its back to CSR days for cane farmers

[posted 23 July 2009,1515]

FSC continues to deny growers data on the amount of sugar manufactured weekly at each of its mills, adding to suspicion that it has something to hide.

It takes the industry back to the days of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (FSC) when growers often felt cheated of their proper dues because the Company kept such data confidential.

This situation was rectified only after the 1970 Denning Award which finally provided justice and equity to growers and brought a modicum of stability to the sugar industry.

Forty-five years later, things appear to have come full circle. Once again executives of the milling company, no doubt under directions from their (local) expatriate consultants, themselves former CSR staff, are withholding vital information from growers in an industry in which they have a 70% stake.

However, figures NFU managed to obtain show that mills are still performing pathetically indicated by an increasingly poor overall TCTS of 14 tonnes of cane being used to produce one tonne of sugar.

Mill Statistics for the week ending 20th July are as follows:

 Mill               Weekly cane crushed            Total crushed to date
                            (tonnes)                             (tonnes)

Lautoka                     22,354                            65,393

Penang                      11,935                            75,880

Labasa                       32,017                          141,204

Rarawai                        4566                               6779

Total sugar in stock: 21,000 tonnes with 12,000 T at Labasa and 9000T at Lautoka.

TCTS 14.

FSC is still 9000 tonnes short of a full load for the deferred shipment now due at the end of the month.